A Poor Boy's Story
Written by Gurnsey's Granddaughter, Nellie McAllister (Daughter of Angeline Brown).
This is a true story of Grandfather Gurnsey I wrote once when we had to write a true story of Pioneer Life in school. By Nellie McAllister
A happy family was seated around a cosy fire one evening when Gurnsey asked his Grandfather for a story. "Well, you will never tire of hearing stories," said his Grandfather. "As you boys think you have a hard time of it, perhaps I had better tell you some of the experiences of my younger days. You boys don't know anything about being poor or hard work either. When I was about 14 years old, I would carry a sack of corn to mill, get it ground and then carry it back, and it was no short distance either as the mill was over a sandy hill, about four or five miles from home. I used to make about two trips a week. And I did not have solid shoes on like you have, to keep the hot sand from burning my feet.
My clothes were not very nice either, I was pleased to get a pair of pants made out of flour sacks as you seem to be when you get a nice black pair. I will never forget the first pair of buckskin pants I wore. I was about 18 years old then. I went one day to bring the cows from the pasture, which was some distance from home. I rained on me going down and as soon as my pants got wet, they began to stretch. They kept stretching and I kept rolling them up, but I got tired of rolling them and thought that they might as well be cut off then as any time. So I cut about a foot off the legs. It stopped raining by the time I started home. I got home early with the cows, but I stayed out of mother's sight as long as I could, for the new pants she had made for me the day before had shrunk! till they were about legless. It is something to laugh at now but I did not laugh that night, for I had been working about two months to earn money enough to buy those pants and a theatre ticket. The theatre was to be on the following Friday night in Salt Lake City. I had been planning to go to it for a long time and could not give it up. I felt so bad that Mother cut up one of her half worn bed ticks and made a pair of pants out of it.
Just imagine how I looked in my striped pants with half a suspender fastened to them with sticks that I had whittled out for the purpose. Well, when I got my finery on Mother gave me a list of some things she wanted from the store and I started to the city. I was tired after my long walk so as soon as I purchased the articles that Mother wanted. I sat down under a shade tree to wait till time for the theatre, I did not remain there long as it was soon time to go.
The Theatre was crowded and I took a seat by two young girls with whom I was not very well acquainted but I thought this would be a good chance to get acquainted. I enjoyed the first two or three scenes very well, but after a time the room became close and I could smell onion. It was very disagreeable, the perfume of onions became stronger, till I decided that I was as well acquainted with those girls as I wanted to be. So I took another seat, my, it was worse then ever!, and I began to think that everybody in the house had been eating onion, except myself. I was not long in changing my mind, for I put my hand in my pocket and there was the asafetida*, I had gotten for Mother. Though I have had many a laugh over it since, I felt very serious about it then. And I never felt so much as a prisoner set free, as when I left that Theatre"
(*The dictionary defines asafetida as "a fetid resinous gum obtained from the roots of a herbaceous plant, used in herbal medicine and Indian cooking." KMA)
(**Gurnsey's grandfathers were William Brown Sr. 1766-1820 from Hancock , Berkshire, Massachusetts AND John Weaver 1776-1847 Stillwater, Saratoga, New York. I guess the story could be about either of these grandfathers - Kathleen Mitchell Abrams)
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